Powder Miner

Navin grimaced as he watched the Japanese goddess very rapidly start to continue down the path she had earlier, and Navin was almost starting to sweat because of how poorly things were going. He looked between Mitsurugi, and down the hall at Solomon, and then at Spicy HG, and he winced. Okay... this wasn't going to end well, even Navin could tell that. Miss Saigai probably didn't need a completely new person and also Solomon hovering in the hall outside, so he should probably find a way to separate them from the situation. He took a couple of steps forward towards Spicy with an unsure, "what am I doing even" kind of expression on his face. Not only would he have to be terribly rude by doing that, but he would also be implying that Mitsurugi couldn't handle the situation herself, which is not an insult that he really wanted to be giving. So after stepping forward he kind of just... looked around again and then gave Spicy a pleading look.

Now that he was actively looking for it, Navin didn't miss the sudden pall that came to her expression, and he opened and closed his mouth -- yet again he seemed to be hitting upon whatever reminded her of the people Empi had told him that she had lost, and he had no idea how NOT to hit these things. Thankfully, a distraction came, which allowed Navin to just keep his stupid mouth shut. The two of them seemed to exchange a couple of words, but after the new woman introduced herself, Navin proceeded to introduce himself because, uh, that was probably better to do than to upset miss Saigai again. "Ah... My name is Navin Mhasalkar. It is a pleasure to meet you."

Isobel Low and LOTUS Isobel blushed a bit when Lexiel spoke and complimented her -- though to be honest, that particular choice of compliment was a little bit troubling even if it was praise, what with knowing her limits kind of being a little bit depressing. She frowned and actually spoke first after Edmond spoke, too. "Uh... if I'm remembering my history right... isn't Jeanne D'Arc that one French girl that got burnt at the stake? She has a lot of fire? Wow, that's... that's honestly really messed up, if you think about it." Whatever was responsible for doing whatever was happening to these historical figures had a really really sick sense of humor. LOTUS spoke after taking in what all of the various squad leaders had said. "No, that's a quite sufficient amount of information Edmond. I may be someone who doesn't like being kept in the dark, but that's far more concrete, usable information in one dose than I've been given for a while. Not that the earlier briefing wasn't useful, as it provided me enough context to genuinely understand the situation, but it's nice to have something to actually work off." Well, sometimes LOTUS felt like he'd start seeing a decline in his personality functionality if he didn't get information to help fill the void left by the lack of the uplink, but THAT was why he wanted Edmond to stay anyway. "Anyway, unless any of you have other topics or questions to discuss, I believe that I have all of the intel I need now. If you want to leave, you may, except that I'm going to want Edmond to stay for a moment to talk to him privately." Perlita Diaz Perlita groaned quietly and elbowed Gabriel again when he proceeded to put on his usual routine. "Oh my god, Gabriel, you do not have to hit on people, you know. Uh, my apologies for my being rude, it's just that it was a little surprising at first to see how strong you are." Perlita awkwardly halfway extends her hand for a handshake, slightly withdraws it as she wonders if that's being overly formal or something, and then realizes that that in turn would be even more awkward so finally finishes extending her hand, and then winces ever so slightly. "Uh, my name is Perlita Diaz, I'm part of the... group of reinforcements, I guess I could put it. Uh, I'm a healer more than anything else. He," Perlita nudges him again once for good measure, "is Gabriel Kowalski."

She was smiling, so that was probably a good sign? "Heh, well--" Solomon barged in, dragging one of the new people along, eliciting a briefly confused glance from Navin, but Navin worked with international superheroes, fought international supervillains, and his best friend was a Bollywood actor that got super strength and proceeded to take his character and be him when on superhero duty... yeah, that wasn't, comparatively, much of a sight. So Navin just continued. "Heh, well, I will simply say that you should be glad that I was the one who ended up in this group (not that I am attempting to brag here), and not instead a couple of the heroes I have had to work with. I have only ever seen religious symbols pulled out... mmm, perhaps once or twice by this one man from Islamabad, thinking upon it, but... well, I have most certainly seen some tension." Navin's vaguely nationalistic train of thought kind of trailed off, and then he kind of shrugged. Time to hope he wasn't driving her to distress again.

"Yes... I can handle my swords... I suppose that I may not seem like it, what with recent events, but I am a proper samurai..." Satomi sighed. She could see where Harry was coming from, but nonetheless her swords were what she'd received upon her gempukku graduation from her samurai school and they marked her as a samurai in service of the empire, an adult and ready to perform her duty. Harry probably hadn't meant it to be the way she took it, Satomi actually realized that much, but, well... "like a child", she had already thought when she had cut herself, and Harry probably wouldn't miss the flash of genuine hurt that went across her face after his joke, even if she tried to disguise it afterwards by going on as if it hadn't happened. "I am not really sure what you mean by injections, but I'll trust you on this. It is your area of expertise, after all." Later, Satomi was leaning against the wall of the warehouse; not because she needed to cry out and wallow in her weakness in an alley, not because she felt terrible (though she did), but because she had been awake by her estimation most of a day and a night now. Sometimes she nodded off for a couple of seconds, but tried to stay awake afterwards because he three of them had been entrusted with watching the warehouse, sometimes she looked at the phone she had been given and thought about it, and sometimes she just stared blearily at her surroundings. Then the PRT officer came and started to talk with Lilly about the contents of the warehouse (huh, Satomi actually hadn't learned anything about what was going on there), and Satomi was about to internally laugh before she realized that the only people at the warehouse WERE in fact her (the terribly alienated and emotionally weak samurai), Lilly (the crazy reckless girl with the little dragon), and Lucille (who Satomi thought was younger than her, even if she wasn't sure, and who had gone off on Armsmaster earlier in a big coverblowing rant). Satomi ended up falling in near Lilly and Lucille, but she ended up letting out a little bark of sardonic laughter and spoke: "Oh Heaven... we may actually be THE worst choices for dealing with this."

Also near the warehouse (albeit on the other side, allowing her not to hear the commotion around Lilly, Harry, and Lucille), Satomi fiddled with Harry's multitool. It was a fascinating little device, packed with an almost dizzying array of tools that were individually simple but that Satomi could probably, altogether, spend an hour or more just considering their uses and trying to in fact get a little hands-on experience with them where she could. Or so she thought at least. After extending almost every one of the tools in the thing, she reached to extend another one, and then she felt a sudden and sharp pain in her fourth finger. "Ah!" She let out a little yelp, and then looked at her finger... oh, she'd cut it fairly badly... and on what looked to be a little saw... ouch. Once the blood started to run down her hand, she brought her right hand up and popped it into her mouth, with an annoyed expression on her face. Really, she couldn't believe herself. All of that earlier, plus now she managed to cut herself handling a tool like she was a child. Sighing into her bleeding finger, Satomi headed around towards the other side of the warehouse where she believed Harry was, and one glance would pretty much tell him (or anyone else who looked) what happened: she looked frustrated, with her finger in her mouth and a couple of rivulets of blood down her hand, all of the tools closed on the multitool in her other hand except for one that glinted redly as she approached.

Navin pursed his lips after Mitsurugi spoke to absolve him of responsibility for the incident... it sure didn't feel like it wasn't his fault at all, and even if that was the sort of thing Navin had to admit he thought a lot, he really thought that she was owed an apology. He thought for a couple of seconds, nodded once to himself, nodded twice, and then began to speak. "...no. Oh, er, my apologies, but no, I do not believe that I am not at least a little in the wrong here. It takes two people to have a conversation, after all." That wasn't usually the context in which his friend had tended to use that phrase back home, but Navin figured it applied well enough. "Ah, the social side of things has... never been my strongest suit, I am afraid."

Isobel Low and LOTUS There was a moment of contemplation on the small AI's part, before he let out a long sigh, halfway between a natural voice and an electronic crackle. "...Right. I suppose that I do need to take responsibility for that. The mismatch in team buildup was the direct result of a pair of critically flawed assumptions on my part. First of all, and this is why I over specialized so greatly (though now that I know the capabilities of at least the Assassin team more directly I suspect it still would have been a mistake), I misunderstood Nobunaga and believed that the abilities listed in regards to each Servant would be exhibited in their battles -- but it appears I was critically incorrect on that count, and it resulted in teams that were with the exception of mine poorly suited to their tasks. Secondly, though I'm hesitant to say that the amount of force I brought to the assassin battle was unneeded, as I had to make use of Nobunaga twice to deal with the amount of injury those terrible skeletons could put out, I assumed that the fort and castle teams would require fewer personnel and would be lower intensity -- that's another cause of your problems, Lexiel. I believe that I've received enough information and learned enough lessons to put together a significantly more well-rounded set of teams for the future, but I have been through enough by now to know that not to admit my mistakes would be a recipe for poor judgement later. Hopefully the influx of new forces will help, as well" LOTUS' somber tone was maybe undercut a bit by Isobel actually contributing to the conversation. When Lexiel talked about people being too macho to learn to heal, the blue-aproned botanist suddenly grinned, and pulled one of her healing poppies out of her plant pouch, spinning it around in a gloved hand. Whatever Tama was was frankly kind of intimidating, so both her grin and her following line turned out far more sheepish than she had intended, but still, she joked: "Maybe they're afraid of becoming too much like the pretty flower lady?"

Navin hadn't actually been worrying about Mitsurugi getting angry (she didn't seem like the type of person to do so from the conversation he'd had), but he had been worrying that his presence would maybe remind her of the unpleasant outcome of that in the first place. Still, if that was the case she seemed to be handling it well, not that he frankly could tell at all what she was thinking, with the perfect smoothness of her voice. He wavered for a couple of seconds, before he sighed audibly and spoke, trying to put it delicately: "Ah, miss Saigai, I... well, I came to apologize, for my behavior earlier. Miss Powderbelle made me aware of exactly the way in which I had... uh... well, she used a rather explicit term for it, but, failed." How did he specifically acknowledge his fault without reminding her of specifically what he'd made the mistake of reminding her of last time, oh god(s), "So... I have to apologize for the... obliviousness with which I approached our previous conversation. I had not really been noticing anything at all, though I should have."

Isobel Low and LOTUS LOTUS has little eyebrows appear above his eyes on his screen display, evidently surprised, but he doesn't let the pause go on long. "...I am not going to lie... I didn't actually expect everyone to show up here so quickly. I had gone and pre-supposed that coordinating couldn't possibly be that easy. I'm certainly not going to complain, though. Actual punctuality, oh, that's fantastic. Even if Ghost sent a proxy, I don't see a reason to be annoyed with that." "Right, in the interest of keeping things brief (though I'll want you to stick around, Edmond, unless you have some other plans), I just have a couple of things I want to specifically go over with all of the squad leaders present and able to contribute the discussion. Three, actually. First of all: the nature of our opponents. When Aurora killed Assassin, her last words implied that she had been taken over or possessed or something of the sort, as she changed appearance shortly before she died. Unfortunately, though, I didn't get much from her on the topic, on account of she died. Edmond, did you have something similar happen? And that comes to the second topic I wanted to discuss, did you get the identities of any of the other Servants from Berserker? And the third thing I wanted to discuss related to you, Lexiel. You told me that your group very nearly lost the battle, and it probably behooves me to ask what the factors that led up to that were, so that we can adjust next time to prevent it happening again. Was it, if I had to guess, lack of healing ability? My group very nearly took losses because we could barely keep up, and we had multiple of them -- those skeletons were quite problematic." Isobel tried to be pretty much ignorable, as LOTUS was on a roll (as he tended to get) and she didn't frankly have much to contribute. She just settled for watching the others if they replied, having not much of anything else better to do then maybe try to glean some pieces of their personalities by watching how they talked. Really, Isobel wished that there was a garden around here, or just somewhere she could have the opportunity to work in her element, instead of being a piece of the scenery, upstaged by something the size of her hand on her belt.

Navin entered the barracks a few seconds after Mitsurugi did, having taken a few seconds to collect his thoughts, but enter he did (and unknowingly with Empi in tow). While the strikingly-junpsuited man didn't know why Mitsurugi had entered the barracks, just in case it was a sensitive matter, he entered softly and looked around slowly -- were she in fact in the middle of anything that she wouldn't want unterrupted, he didn't want to do so. Eventually, he did find the goddess, in the middle of some blade drill. Initially, he was unsure if this did count as something he ought not interrupt, but after indecisively watching her move through her graceful poses for a few seconds he came to a conclusion. Gently, Navin cleared his throat. "Excuse me...?"

Some of Perlita's awkwardness disappeared for a moment, as she got kind of into delivering her own significantly less optimistic take on the situation to Snow. "No, I was afraid of the opposite, that they're going to be all drill sergeant-y. Whiplash, go faster, you're all soft, you know, that sort of thing. But, uh, less literal I guess." Then one of the people they'd come to reinforce walked on over, and Perlita found to her initial relief that it was someone not too terribly much older than her. Initial relief, however, because the moment that Perlita registered the crazy presence she seemed to have, her jaw dropped. She didn't even have a support persona, but she could instantly sense that this woman had some CRAZY magic going on. "U-uh..."

Of course, Gabriel being Gabriel, he had to go and spout some cheesy and probably flirtatious line about being her "knight in shining armor..." Even if his unending confidence was, as usual, fairly reassuring, Perlita groaned, rolled her eyes and elbowed him lightly. "Come ooon, Gabriel, don't make this all weird." Really wasn't making the awkwardness issue better there, either. Blah. Perlita was alerted to the presence of Snow before she got too close (loud armor and boots tended to do that), and she stopped making a face at Gabriel before Snow got close-up enough for Perlita to embarrass herself, the healer composing herself back into being a little bit stiff. Then Snow asked a question. "Uh... well, I admit that it all seems a bit... imposing. That's a lot of people, we saw the... aftermath of one of the battles, and they seem like hardened soldiers for the most part. I'm hoping that this isn't the case, but maybe they're going to be significantly harder than our little group."

Isobel Low and LOTUS From the very moment that everyone arrived back into the courtyard, LOTUS was all business. With the four battles clearly concluded, his first instinct was to get a debriefing started; while the AI had in fact heard the radio messages that the squad leaders had put out, that didn't compare in usefulness to actually having a conversation, and after the initial round of battles having the information to adjust and adapt to the next ones would he especially crucial. Accordingly, he sent a message onto the squad leader radio channel. "Meet up in the courtyard, I want to discuss the battles and whatever intel we gained during them." Also, LOTUS hadn't missed the sudden influx of yet MORE people, but, that... well, he would want to deal with that a little bit later. While LOTUS was thinking and speaking, Isobel (as she was finding to be rather usual) was just standing there, the freckled, curly-haired botanist adjusting her bandanna nervously. This tended to happen a lot -- the AI on her belt would immediately launch into some highly tactical course of action, or some planning session, or something like that... and she just got to keep quiet. It tended to make her feel useless, honestly, and that bothered her. She figured that she was probably just here because LOTUS was, and even though (no, because) she wanted to help, that hurt. Navin Mhasalkar With the fighting concluded for now, after having helped Edmond out with the tasks at the end of battle, Navin found himself returning to Castle Asterlux, to act in a field as terrifying and confusing as many a battle: attempting to mend things with the divine Japanese woman he'd blundered so horribly around, and who he had driven away, if he remembered correctly, in tears. Oh... yeah, that was an intimidating thought -- at least he had a lot of experience with his destiny-driven duty, and all, but every single time he ended up in a precarious social situation, he found himself more than a little lost. Still, though, thanks to the advice of that... strange, pantsless fairy... Navin knew that he did in fact have to apologize, and the more he delayed the harder it would probably just get. So he looked around for miss Saigai, and though it took him a moment, he eventually spotted her just as she was walking into the barracks. Signing and scratching at the back of his head, Navin followed her off to the barracks. Perlita Diaz Oh, God. Now that she was standing in the courtyard of a second, entirely separate full sized castle, and now that no less than four teams of the people who they had arrived to reinforce had piled into said courtyard of said castle, Perlita realized that there were an awful lot of people that the little team she and Gabriel had been with were getting folded into, and considering that she'd seen the... carnage that had resulted from the battle around the first castle, she was willing to bet that this mass of people was also a mass of hardened warriors. Yeah... that was intimidating. "Oh Dios..." she repeated, this time out loud, and then she heaved a sigh and clapped a hand on Gabriel's shoulder. "Um... Gabriel... I think that we need to go meet some of the people of this team, but I kiiiind of don't want to do it alone, given how, you know, awkward and nervous and pessimistic I am, eheh... but since you're just the big ball of unending sunshine that you are," she barely resisted the urge to pinch his cheek for emphasis, "I figure things would probably be a lot easier if you come along and join me in meeting whoever we meet? Please? I'm really counting on you here Gabriel."

Nader heard and felt shrapnel ping off of the backplate of his Tiger Armor, and indeed he found, once again, a deep and beautiful appreciation for the work he'd put into it that right now pretty much exceeded words. So, instead of words, he let out a scream and proceeded to continue to run as fast as he could away from the gigantic horrible hook pigman. That running was tragically slow, but considering that he DIDN'T have big holes in his back right now, that was maybe an okay tradeoff. It just meant he had to keep running! Nader barely registered that apparently there was a machine gun on his back now, but he really couldn't be angry about evidently having yet another gun -- because having more guns solves an awful lot of things. Nader just keeps on running! Loadout:

At first, when she saw the Mandalorian woman approach her again, staring at her, Satomi's breath hitched a bit and she tensed -- was Mirri not done with her? Was the armored woman going to try to choke her again or something like that?! The answer, apparently, was no, as Satomi learned when Mirri, contrary to all of Satomi's expectations, suddenly dropped to one knee and devoted eternal service to her. "Uhh," Satomi began to reply eloquently, following it up soon after with a still-flabbergasted "Um," and of course an ever-diplomatic "Uummmm..." See, this was actually something of a tight spot for Satomi, as the woman still did make her uncomfortable and she never imagined being in the position of being owed a personal honor debt in the first place, let alone one from the woman she'd near-homicidally enraged. However, rejecting Mirri out of hand risked being an insult to her honor, and Satomi, well, Satomi didn't exactly want to risk doing that at all. So, haltingly, she took a winding, careful way around it. She still winced when she spoke, though. "Uh, wellll... it... may be inconvenient for the... overall cohesion of our group for the task of aiding the many worlds against their enemies if I were to have your direct service, and... I don't think that I am really prepared for something like that, anyway, but... maybe... I could get you to speak with me at some point, about the earlier argument, and then the... one use I would have for you would be to remain calm...?"

Satomi didn't really know how to respond to that at first. Though Satomi was a smart girl, she had just had a massive blowout (disastrous on multiple levels) around what had to at least in part be a misunderstanding, after all, and Somatotrope (no, Julie, now) hadn't really had much of a clue herself, from the sounds of it. But she could figure it out. For now, Satomi had a reason to have just a slight little smile on her face, as Julie here had not only gotten rid of her helmet but had fully revealed her name to her -- Satomi did feel just a little bad about feeling disdainful towards the crinkly-armored woman earlier, but that was overshadowed by how much Satomi approved of getting to really meet Julie, and how kind of touched she was by Julie showing her that trust. "Um... thank you, Julie." Haha whoops, Satomi still wasn't 100% sure how to respond. But if the other woman was going to show Satomi that trust... "I... I think... there might be a couple of similarities in our stories... Um, Rokuganis aren't bad people, but... I also have had the, um... ...I also don't... um, know some things. I guess... I guess that there's no excuse right now not to try to learn, but I had never met someone not from Rokugan before..." She rubbed her eyes, suddenly aware of the time that she had been awake and that her exhaustion wasn't all from being strangled, "So... I don't get a lot of the ways people think, I suppose. ...and I don't know what of what I know is wrong, or not." Satomi paused again. "I... am not sure what I am trying to say either. Um... I suppose... I think you are then the most likely to understand, right...? I think I just need someone to... to understand. And help me understand."

Satomi's lips pursed in annoyance briefly when Harry said his piece about not caring that the multi tool would occupy her, and that he cared only if she would get something... because that was what she had meant by "occupy" in the first place, give her something to analyze and learn from. But that flash of annoyance was just a flash, because she had a couple more things to think about. The first was how sad and frustrated she still was, which she did manage to somewhat alleviate by starting to extend the various pieces of the device in her hands, and the second was that Mirri was right there, and Satomi worried a bit that Mirri would choke her again, not that she would mention it. Satomi... didn't exactly look forward to that conversation. The state Somatotrope found Satomi in, therefore, was alternating between hunching over (still looking rather dejected) and looking at the tiny little tools in Harry's multitool, and looking up in Mirri's general direction with a trepidated expression and then hurriedly looking back down. Given that it was the former action when Soma actually came up to her, Satomi was startled, and accordingly jolted a little bit, but she didn't yelp or anything (which the samurai would consider a victory for now). When she saw that it was Soma who was approaching, and that her helmet was gone, Satomi looked at Soma's uncovered face for a couple of seconds and the startled tension left her body completely. And then Soma asked Satomi if Harry had told the small medieval girl that she was coming. "Um..." Oh yeah, he had mentioned that, but before suggesting that Satomi talk to Mirri... so it had kinda gone in one ear and out the other. "Oh, um, yes, he did."

Satomi did, at least take the offered knife, picking slowly through the contents of the handle for a little while. While she wasn't exactly perked right back up by being given various things to toy with, she did at least appear to be suitably distracted from feeling sorry for herself for the moment while she put the contents of the knife handle out in her hand for a while. Inspecting each of the pieces for a good few seconds (incidentally to the point where she wasn't exactly paying attention to her walking, something that would be riskier if she wasn't fairly agile), she eventually seemed to draw interest in the multitool. She took the little device, and put the other pieces back into the handle in the exact efficient layout she'd found them in, except with the matches' angle adjusted so they wouldn't slide around without the multitool, then she handed the knife back to Harry. "Here... I think that this thing should be able to occupy me for a while."

Satomi twisted her hands more as she walked, a motion that was both idle and still rather upset. "Okay..." Satomi said to Harry's assurance that she wouldn't be blamed for misunderstanding things or not realizing things, in that remarkable slightly-tired tone of voice where a teenager agrees with someone in a position of authority in order to satisfy them -- and while not believing it themselves, half-heartedly trying to sound like they do. After all, Satomi had already been blamed for a misunderstanding and not knowing something, as she saw it, and that's why she'd ended up sobbing in some random, dirty alleyway in the first place. Plus with how they'd acted, Satomi really doubted that they'd forgive her for it any time soon. "I... suppose that it wouldn't be unacceptable to see what you have to show me, though... as long as it's not as incomprehensible as that 'computer' before. I don't know if I could handle another thing I can't understand at all right now." Satomi didn't actually turn and bend over to peek into the backpack, though, as she otherwise might -- the last hour had taken quite the emotional toll on her, after all.

Nader had been running best as he could, the plates, even with the revised articulation on his joints, limiting the length of his strides and ensuring that he moved somewhat clumsily. So when the rest of the party caught up to him, even if he'd expected it, it drew a little "Fuuuck," from him, especially what with the booming voice of their pursuer. Then, when Nader twisted to actually look at said pursuer, he instantly regretted it, seeing as the gasmasked, utterly giant, horribly obese monster chasing them was actually pretty terrifying. "FUUUCK!" Nader turned back and just did his best to run. Nader uses his action to move! Layout:

Nader had been understanding enough about retreating even before Vitor further explained, but once the Overwatch agent did in fact explain what they were up against, one line stuck out rather prominently and rather horrifyingly to the armored man. "...but the guy could laugh off bullets before he got magic and he's got a shotgun that can tear through steel plate..." Vitor had said. Nader looked down at his guns, which were his primary, secondary, and tertiary means of attack and his security, "...oh shit..." Then he looked downwards at his armor, which was his other big piece of security... and made of manganese-steel plate. "OH SHIT!" Nader abandoned his sideways gait, now fully in the direction of running, furiously gesturing for the others to follow him, shouting. "WE ALL NEED TO MOVE! If this man blows through steel plate and ignores plating, he is a BIG DEAL and you are NOT gonna take him down just by talking confidently about him because Allah save, he's practically a damn tank!" Upon looking and seeing that not everyone was following, he saw the two talking about duels. They were already being talked at, but Nader found this to be a rather pressing matter, turning in their direction, stopping for just a second, and shouting at them as loud as he could. "COME THE FUCK ON! IF YOU KEEP STANDING THERE, YOU ARE GOING TO DIE! MOVE!" Then he got back to running as well.

Satomi let out a sigh as she stood back up, sniffling again and in fact managing not to break out into tears again, though she wiped her eyes again just to make sure. "R-Right..." she sighed. "I... I think that I have been stubborn about that, yes... mayhaps I was more interested in being understood than I was in really understanding myself... but, um, I should try harder, yes? I just hope that things do not turn out quite this way again... because i-it still is hard. But... but... enh... I don't know." Satomi twisted her hands together for a moment. "I hope I can be forgiven if I don't realize something, and I make a mistake, or if I don't realize that something is so... insulting? I don't know. Maybe it's weak of me to ask that. I don't know, I'm sorry." She stepped away from the wall, and though she still looked quite frankly miserable, she was moving. "We should go back to the rest of the group now, right?"

Nader turned from alarm and instinctive aggression to yet more deep confusion as the spearman kind of just... shattered his spear out of existence, and even more noticeably, the little girl (uh, Lucine) abruptly... had her magical flying thing transform into hand cannons, and also she let out a flashing light and suddenly was wearing a fancy dress... and talking in a monotone... and also something about combat protocols apparently? "Wh-- nuh-- no, fuck it, okay." Though his confusion had lessened his alarm, that's why he had to snap himself out of it -- it wouldn't do to be anything less than on his highest guard when there was something like the thing that grabbed that poor bastard with its hook out there, and accordingly Nader kind of just aimed all his guns in that general direction, backing away. When the masked gas man (mentally, Nader made a note to work a gas filter into his own mask) suggested his plan, Nader didn't even stop and question it. "Okay, sounds like a plan! I can't move very fast in my Rabid Tiger Armor, so I guess I'll keep up the rear of the group. Come on!" He began to move in the opposite direction of where their enemy presumably was, moving as fast as he could sideways (he had guns to point and people to watch, after all) while in his armor (an okay pace at the very best), and gestured for the others to follow and pass him.

Nader had been gradually relaxing a little bit, but that was gone in a flash as all of a sudden he found himself transported to a completely different area, like Doctor Doom had promised... oh yeah. Although the desert and the shitty town reminded him just a little of home, in worse days, Nader was still instantly ramrod straight and tense to the point of being practically jittery at being tossed into yet another foreign environment. And when he heard the sounds of weapons... instantly, Nader was already moving to slap a belt of ammunition into his machine gun, something he finished by the time the poor bastard who got hooked got dragged away. Then, the other one, the screaming one, ran on over and pointed a spear at the nice little girl he'd just been speaking to, by which point Nader was drawing his Osprey, leaving him with no less than 3 (three) guns drawn and ready for combat. He then pointed his Horsekiller arm at the man with the spear as he loaded ammunition into it. "Don't go pointing weapons at people, especially little girls, in the middle of heavily armed groups." he said, before the gun-obsessed man proceeded to load the Osprey too, balancing it on the crook of his arm so he could reload with his off hand while keeping his Horsekiller pointed.